Rio De Janeiro-Police State

[Pauls' Revere]

https://phys.org/news/2018-12-camera...e-janeiro.html

Rio de Janeiro state is moving ahead with plans to deploy security cameras and drones to help fight crime, according to its next governor, a far-right politician loyal to president-elect Jair Bolsonaro.

A tender to install 30,000 cameras will be launched soon, Wilson Witzel, who takes up the governorship of the southeast Brazilian state in January, told a media conference late Monday.

"Security is our priority," he said.

On Tuesday Witzel traveled to Israel to view drones that could be used to monitor armed drug gangs.

O Globo, a Brazilian news outlet, said it understood the drones included combat versions capable of firing weapons, which could be used for targeting gang members in hard-to-access favelas, or high-density slums.

The governor-elect was also reportedly to inspect Israeli-made cameras with face-recognition.

Witzel's communications teams did not confirm details of the Israel visit when contacted by AFP. It said the "diverse activities" on his trip included "learning about drone technology."

Witzel won Rio de Janeiro state's gubernatorial election on October 28 with 60 percent of the vote. He benefited from a far-right wave that swept Bolsonaro to the presidency.

Like Bolsonaro, the former federal judge has vowed a crackdown on crime that plagues Brazilian streets. Rio de Janeiro state last year recorded more than 5,300 murders.

Shortly after his election, Witzel stirred controversy by saying he intended to authorize police snipers to kills armed criminals even if they presented no threat to officers.

In his media conference Monday, Witzel said he would invest heavily in security, regardless of the parlous finances of Rio de Janeiro state, which has been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-camera...neiro.html#jCp

[Swordsmyth]

Up to 120 sharpshooters will accompany Rio de Janeiro police into the city's slums to eradicate violent gun-toting criminals, according to Flavio Pacca - a longtime associate and security adviser to Governor-elect Wilson Witzel.

The marksmen will work in pairs; one shooter and one spotter who will monitor conditions and videotape the executions, according to Bloomberg, with the two officers alternating roles.
"The protocol will be to immediately neutralize, slaughter anyone who has a rifle," said Witzel - a former Brazilian marine and federal judge, on December 12. "Whoever has a rifle isn't worried about other people's lives, they're ready to eliminate anyone who crosses their path. This is a grave problem, not just in Rio de Janeiro, but in other states."

According to Flavio Pacca - a police officer and regular attendee at Witzel's transition meetings, groups of 20 policemen will begin undergoing month-long marksman training as soon as March. Those who qualify as deadly at 600 meters will begin "servicing targets" in the cartel-controlled favelas, where residents are under the constant threat of drug traffickers and gang wars.
As Bloomberg notes, the notion of "imminent danger" which justifies an extrajudicial killing is a gray area.
"That concept is changing; it's not for nothing that Bolsonaro was elected, not for nothing that Witzel was elected," said Pacca - pointing to a jewelry-store thief who used an octogenarian as a human shield while escaping. When the thief stumbled, police shot him dead at point-blank range. "The people gave the police an ovation. That's what you're going to see."
Witzel - like President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, gained support during Brazil's October elections running on a campaign of zero tolerance for criminals who have made daily life in Rio a harrowing ordeal. Rio will essentially be a proving ground for Bolsonaro's advocacy of maximum force with the use of extrajudicial killings.
Last year there were 5,346 homicides in Rio - an eight-year high, while muggings and robberies have more than doubled since 2011. To try and address the crime, President Michel Temer in February put the army in control of security through the end of the year.
Central to Witzel's stepped-up enforcement efforts will be a security council that reports to him directly, as well as a planned surveillance network utilizing as many as 30,000 security cameras. Earlier in the month Witzel traveled to Israel to meet with Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries - both of which develop drone technology.
Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has said that cops who kill criminals should be given medals - and has promised to legally protect those who do.

Days after the election, video showed Rio police loading the limp, bleeding bodies of two young men accused of drug trafficking into the bed of a pick-up. Bystanders cheered, with one yelling Bolsonaro’s name.
“The NGOs, human rights activists and United Nations will have a fit,” Alexandre Frota, a congressman-elect, said on Twitter while sharing the video. “But the cleansing must be done.’’
Crime pervades Rio: Stray bullets strike schoolchildren. Residents of means are averse to conspicuous consumption. Commuters alter routes to avoid danger and the price of car insurance spiked with the surge in carjacking. -Bloomberg

"I prefer the criminals get slaughtered instead of the criminals slaughtering us," said 41-year-old Suelen Souza, who sells stuffed potatoes at the bottom of the Dona Marta favela where a police officer was shot int neck earlier this month. Souza says Witzel's offensive could make it safer for her daughters to play in the neighborhood again. Her husband, engineer Jose Olympio Souza said "a shock of morality showing the government has strength - not indefinitely, but initially - would be good."



More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...t-license-kill

[jkr]

Get?

[Swordsmyth]

Get?

It wasn't official before.

[shakey1]

https://phys.org/news/2018-12-camera...e-janeiro.html

Rio de Janeiro state is moving ahead with plans to deploy security cameras and drones to help fight crime, according to its next governor, a far-right politician loyal to president-elect Jair Bolsonaro.

A tender to install 30,000 cameras will be launched soon, Wilson Witzel, who takes up the governorship of the southeast Brazilian state in January, told a media conference late Monday.

"Security is our priority," he said.

On Tuesday Witzel traveled to Israel to view drones that could be used to monitor armed drug gangs.

O Globo, a Brazilian news outlet, said it understood the drones included combat versions capable of firing weapons, which could be used for targeting gang members in hard-to-access favelas, or high-density slums.

The governor-elect was also reportedly to inspect Israeli-made cameras with face-recognition.

Witzel's communications teams did not confirm details of the Israel visit when contacted by AFP. It said the "diverse activities" on his trip included "learning about drone technology."

Witzel won Rio de Janeiro state's gubernatorial election on October 28 with 60 percent of the vote. He benefited from a far-right wave that swept Bolsonaro to the presidency.

Like Bolsonaro, the former federal judge has vowed a crackdown on crime that plagues Brazilian streets. Rio de Janeiro state last year recorded more than 5,300 murders.

Shortly after his election, Witzel stirred controversy by saying he intended to authorize police snipers to kills armed criminals even if they presented no threat to officers.

In his media conference Monday, Witzel said he would invest heavily in security, regardless of the parlous finances of Rio de Janeiro state, which has been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-camera...neiro.html#jCp

License-to-Kill Policing to Get a Trial Run in Rio de Janeiro
RIO DE JANEIRO –– Teams of marksmen next year will patrol parts of Rio de Janeiro with high-power weapons and a license to kill, a security adviser to Gov.-elect Wilson Witzel said.

As many as 120 sharpshooters will accompany police into the slums of Brazil’s second-largest city to kill gun-toting criminals, said Flavio Pacca, a longtime associate of Witzel’s who the governor-elect’s press office said will join the administration. The shooters will work in pairs –– one to pull the trigger, one to monitor conditions and take video of deaths.

“The protocol will be to immediately neutralize, slaughter anyone who has a rifle,” Witzel, a federal judge and former Brazilian marine, said Dec. 12. “Whoever has a rifle isn’t worried about other people’s lives; they’re ready to eliminate anyone who crosses their path. This is a grave problem, not just in Rio de Janeiro, but also in other states.”


Like President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, Witzel cruised to victory in October promising a brutal crackdown on criminals who make daily life a harrowing ordeal. Rio will be a proving ground for Bolsonaro’s philosophy of maximum force and whether law enforcement devolves into a storm of extrajudicial killings.

Witzel declined interview requests and would not comment on the plan Pacca described.

Rio’s homicides last year surged to an eight-year high of 5,346 and robberies and muggings have more than doubled since 2011. In February, President Michel Temer put the army in control of security through year-end and Witzel, as he takes over, intends to seek out the fight.

Witzel will create a security council that answers to him directly and envisions a web of surveillance and control. He plans public-private partnerships to purchase as many as 30,000 security cameras, according to his press office. This month, he traveled to Israel to visit two companies that work on drones. Pacca said the unmanned aircraft will take pictures of drug traffickers holding weapons so police will have evidence to arrest suspects when they emerge from their neighborhoods.

Pacca, a police officer himself and a regular attendee at Witzel’s transition meetings, said groups of 20 policemen will begin undergoing monthlong marksman training as soon as March. After they can kill at 2,000 feet, they will typically clear the way into favelas, where many residents live under the sway of drug traffickers. Gangs often position roadblocks and lookouts to impede police and rival gangs.

Marksmen will alternate, with one shooting and one spotting targets and shooting video to prove that a person deserved killing, Pacca said. Society and jurists are shifting their views of what constitutes “imminent danger’’ that justifies lethal force, he said, and targets don’t need to be shooting.

“That concept is changing; it’s not for nothing that Bolsonaro was elected, not for nothing that Witzel was elected,’’ Pacca said. He referred to a jewelry-store thief who this month used an octogenarian as a human shield during his escape. As he stumbled, officers shot him dead at point-blank range. “The people gave the police an ovation. That’s what you’re going to see.’’

Bolsonaro has said police officers who kill should be given medals and has promised that they will be legally protected. Soon after the election, video showed Rio police loading the limp, bleeding bodies of two young men accused of drug trafficking into the bed of a pick-up. Bystanders cheered, with one yelling Bolsonaro’s name.

“The NGOs, human rights activists and United Nations will have a fit,” Alexandre Frota, a congressman-elect, said on Twitter while sharing the video. “But the cleansing must be done.’’

Even before Witzel, Rio police increasingly resorted to force. More people died at their hands during the first 11 months of 2018 than any year since state records begin in 2003. The 1,444 dead represent a 39 percent increase from 2017.

Not all are justified. On a rainy September day, a 26-year-old man awaited his wife and two children in their hillside favela that looks out over Copacabana beach. Police mistook his umbrella for a rifle and shot him, according to local press reports. He died on the way to a hospital.

“The Bolsonaro-Witzel duo is a concern for those who value democracy, value human rights, value the lives of people in the favelas.” said Julita Lemgruber, coordinator of the Center for Security and Citizenship Studies at the city’s Candido Mendes University.

Bolsonaro’s office didn’t respond to calls and messages seeking comment.

Gen. Richard Nunes, Rio’s acting security secretary, said violence alone can’t solve the problems and that the military has strengthened institutions and recovered operational capacity with training and new equipment. Since April, muggings, homicides and armed robbery of stores declined as soldiers became a constant presence, Nunes said.

“If we don’t address public security with a broader vision, instead of thinking things get resolved by tactical, direct confrontation, the tendency is for indicators to worsen,” Nunes said. He called the increase in police killings this year “totally undesirable and unexpected.”


As long as police face few consequences for killing people, the cycle of violence will remain, according to Daniel Wilkinson, Americas managing director at Human Rights Watch.

“We’re very concerned 2019 will only deteriorate further,” Wilkinson said. “This isn’t naivete about the problem; this comes from understanding what a serious problem this is for members of communities where you have gangs, and for police officers who have a very difficult job.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...rio-de-janeiro

[Swordsmyth]

Rio Police To Get "License-To-Kill"

Started by Swordsmyth, 12-22-2018

[Pauls' Revere]

Rio Police To Get "License-To-Kill"

Started by Swordsmyth, 12-22-2018

12-04-2018, 07:56 PM #1
Pauls' Revere

[Swordsmyth]

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has sent 300 soldiers to the northern city of Fortaleza with orders to stop a surge in criminal attacks targeting banks, buses and shops, according to France24.

Ceara on fire... pic.twitter.com/nPfAgKG5Xz
— ubajarasun (@ubajara2020ce) January 4, 2019

By the end of the weekend, 300 soldiers will be patrolling that city and other towns in Ceara state in a bid to halt the rampage, national public security secretary Guilherme Teophilo said, according to government news agency Agencia Brasil.
The intervention is the first test of new President Jair Bolsonaro's strict law-and-order platform since he took office last Tuesday.
His justice minister ordered the deployment after concluding that Ceara police were overwhelmed. Some 50 suspects have been arrested. -France24

The gangs attacking Fortaleza have been seen on security footage torching gas stations, while dozens of attacks were registered this week as frightened residents stay indoors - leaving the main roads deserted.

Ceará agora a pouco . pic.twitter.com/2zUczhLbUB
— Pitta Macedo (@PITTA_macedo) January 5, 2019

Aqui é Massapê !meu interior vizinho a Sobral ! pic.twitter.com/4ENrPoxYJn
— Gustavo carneiro CRVG (@gustavocrvgg) January 5, 2019

In one of the attacks, explosives left a road supporting pillar badly damaged in the town of Caucaia, just west of Fortaleza.

While the exact cause of the surge in violence is unknown, intelligence reports published by Brazilian media have pointed to gangs revolting against tough new rules recently instituted throughout the state's prisons, which include blocking cell phone signals and ending the separation of inmates based on gang affiliation.

To protest the measures, two gangs have set aside their rivalry to join forces against the government according to G1 News, citing security officials.
Earlier this month, Bolsonaro vowed to crack down on his country's out-of-control crime by offering immunity to soldiers and police using lethal force, while also easing gun laws with a decree which would make it much easier for adults over 25 to obtain firearms, as long as they have no criminal record. Bolsonaro says that allowing "good" people to own guns will discourage criminals, as well as reduce Brazil's homicide rate after nearly 64,000 murders last year.
In Rio de Janeiro, police have been sent into the city's slums to kill violent gun-toting criminals, according to Flavio Pacca - a longtime associate and security adviser to Governor-elect Wilson Witzel.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...spike-violence

[Swordsmyth]

Brazil has been swept with a rash of violence as gangs react to new President Jair Bolsonaro's crackdown on crime - which includes military takeovers of Brazilian cities and shoot-to-kill orders carried out by teams of sharpshooters.

Five hundreds national guard troops have been deployed to the north-eastern town of Fortaleza in the state of Ceará, after authorities have been overwhelmed by more than a week of violence which saw more than 160 attacks, reports the Guardian.

Security forces say three rival drug gangs have come together to carry out more than 160 attacks in retaliation for a proposal to end the practice of separating gang factions inside Brazil’s prisons.
Buses, mail trucks and cars have been torched. Police stations, city government buildings and banks have been attacked with petrol bombs and explosives. On Sunday, criminals blew up a telephone exchange, leaving 12 cities without mobile service. Other explosions have damaged a freeway overpass and a bridge. -Guardian

There have been 148 arrests linked to the attacks, while at least 20 prisoners suspected of ordering the attacks haver been transferred from state to federal prisons - where Bolsonaro's administration says it won't back down on its plan to combat gang activity.

Gang members detonated an IED on a viaduct support column, putting the viaduct structure at risk of collapse. https://t.co/Gab6Z6zb5G pic.twitter.com/23udUoicpl
— Ross Dayton (@rdayt_) January 7, 2019

Homicide rates in Fortaleza and other north-eastern cities have soared in recent years, as a territorial wars have broken out between Brazil's most notorious gangs; the First Capital Command (known as the PCC in Portuguese) from São Paulo and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho) from Rio de Janeiro, which have locked horns with the Fortaleza-based Guardians of the State and the Northern Family from Amazonas state.

The PCC and the Red Command are locked in a bitter fight to control Brazil’s drugs trade, and Fortaleza is seen as a strategic prize because it is the closest large port to Europe and Africa. -Guardian

"We used to only see this kind of savagery on television in Rio de Janeiro. Things used to be mellow here," said Carlos Robério, co-owner of a minibus co-op in Fortaleza who watched helplessly over a CCTV feed as a group of youths doused one of their kiosks before setting it on fire.
Robério said that the breakdown in civility has made him want to arm himself. "It’s complete chaos here and I feel like I’m in the middle of the ocean without a life raft"

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...naro-crackdown

[Working Poor]

Rio is a very dangerous city. As far I know the police have been "clearing the streets" in Rio for many years. This is nothing knew. I am glad the the new president is allowing regular citizens to purchase guns. Maybe because banning guns never stropped the gangs from being well armed. I have been married to 2 different men from Brazil so I may know a little bit more about the politics and government down there than most Americans.

Most of the Brazilians I know are hopeful that the crime and violence will subside there some day. I know many Brazilians who left Brazil because of the violence in the streets. My son's father was a police officer down there. Everyday he saw police officers killed. Down there it is no big deal because on any given day 10-20 officers are shot at least half of them die. He could never understand why there was so much hoopla over an officer being shot in America. It is a beautiful country but it is high crime. Nobody should do dope down there if you go for a vacation cause you could easily end up dead.